Page 98

He made a soft noise of surprise. “And you didn’t see one when you got there?”

“Nope.”

“Huh.” He walked over and picked up the magnifying glass, studying the image. “Do you recognize it?”

“No. I did a quick google maps search and found two regular car washes, though—ones that aren’t attached to gas stations or self-wash.” I showed him the two names on the notepad.

He pulled out his tablet and wrote down both names with his stylus. “I’ll check to see if either one uses tokens.” He looked up at me. “And I’ll double check that google isn’t missing any.”

I nodded.

“Anything else you noticed that my illustrious colleagues missed?”

“The belt is new,” I said softly.

He reached into the evidence box and pushed a few things out of the way, then lifted out a big baggie with a coiled-up belt inside it. A quick glance told me it looked the same as the one in the photos.

Smith studied it through the plastic of the baggie. “It looks it. I’ll check to see if Mr. Crane recently purchased a belt.”

“He didn’t wear them. At least not that kind.”

“This kind?”

“Yeah. He had a couple, but they were embroidered or beaded. He didn’t own any that were just plain leather.”

Smith studied the belt closer. “Fake leather, from the look of it. Still, worth confirming that he wasn’t the purchaser.” He looked at me over the top of the baggie. “Especially because if he hadn’t bought one recently, that gives more support to the notion that he was murdered.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “He was.”

“I’m sorry to say that Shawano County won’t take your word for it.”

I blew a breath out through my nose. “Unfortunately,” I muttered. I didn’t like it, but Smith was right. The county was going to believe the coroner’s bullshit report before they believed me, or even Ward. Smith also had the right idea in taking the stance that Gregory’s murdermightnot be a suicide. Because that meant that he was likely to make sure all the Ts were crossed and the Is dotted—whereas I was a raging bull charging through the shelves in the china shop, porcelain dinnerware be damned.

We went through everything in the physical evidence box, the coroner’s bullshit report, and the extremely cursory notes that Van Buren had taken before closing the book on the case.

I glared down at the file-folder in my hand.

“It isn’t going to change if you keep staring at it,” Smith pointed out.

“Is he in on this, do you think? Van Buren?” I waved the file around. “Because this is shoddy-ass work if I’ve ever seen it.”

Smith shrugged, his expression uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” he answered, and his tone sounded worried and confused. “Maybe? Or maybe he’s just overworked and underpaid and really wanted the case to be as open-and-shut as it looked.”

I scowled. “That’s no fucking excuse,” I muttered.

Smith shrugged again. “Personally, I’d rather be working with someone lazy than someone corrupt,” he replied.

It was a fair point. I detested laziness and corner-cutting, but it was infinitely preferable to someone actively sabotaging cases. I’d rather not have to make that choice at all, but beggars and choosers and all that shit.

* * *

I managedto make it home for dinner, which Elliot also attended, because now he and Taavi were texting, apparently.

Call me a hypocritical asshole, but I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, I’d had alotof anxiety about Taavi and Elliot not getting along, so the fact that they were should have thrilled me. On the other, apparently I have a mile-and-a-half wide jealous streak, and I couldn’t at that precise moment tell you which way that jealousy went—whether I wanted to keep my best friend or my boyfriend all for myself.

It was stupid as fuck, and Iknewthat, but the fact that neither of them wasevergoing to exclusively spend time just with me—especially because I was off galivanting in murder-investigation land with Gale Smith—rubbed my already raw psyche the absolute wrong way.

At least I’m enough of a self-aware asshole that I knew to keep my big fucking mouth shut about it.